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Description
The project has the overall objective of improving access to justice for persons wishing to strengthen their human rights protection. Our work exposes us to several human rights challenges faced by various groups of persons, primarily being vulnerable or marginalised groups such as LGBTIQ+ community, migrants/refugees/the elderly, children, persons with disabilities, persons at risk of poverty and women involved in prostitution. Whilst Malta has a relatively strong human rights regime that seeks to protect a long list of fundamental human rights, the practical protection offered to persons whose rights have been violated or might be violated is rather weak.
In several of our earlier projects, alone and also with several other NGO colleagues, we identified institutional obstacles to effective to justice for human rights protection. Examples include: difficulty accessing legal aid services, quality of legal aid services, capacity of administrative tribunals to cope with caseload, lack of expertise of some tribunals in relevant matters, lack of enforcement mechanisms and lack of protection of victims.
This project will initially conduct a prioritisation exercise with key stakeholders in order to ensure we target the most pressing and relevant obstacles. On the basis of this consultation exercise, our advocacy initiatives will target those entities/persons having a direct or indirect influence of the relevant legislation and/or policies. Together with targeted advocacy activities, we will also organise a public conference where our recommendations will be presented to a wider audience, in order to gather further support and understanding of the issues vulnerable/marginalised groups face when seeking to access justice for human rights protection.